Monthly Archives: June 2019

Jun28

Hard Job

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This looks like a really hard job, the woman on the other side of the bulletproof glass said through the intercom.

I pushed the button to speak to her. Well, it’s my first day working alone, so I’m probably making it seem harder than it really is, I told her.

No. I think it’s a hard job, she said.

I was trying to be optimistic, she was right. It was a hard job.

I’d applied for a job at one of the town’s chain supermarkets. It was the store I shopped at, and the workers all seemed fairly cheerful, so I figured it would be a decent place to work. I’d used a cash register before. Once I got the hang of this particular point-of-sale system, how difficult could it be to ring up groceries for a few hours a day? If there were no cashier positions open, maybe I could stock shelves or work behind the customer service desk. In any case, I’d be working indoors, out of the sun and the heat and the wind and the dust. A supermarket job would be ok.

Photo of Gas Station During Evening

When I went through the prescreening phone interview with someone from the corporate human resources department, I was told the only job available at that store was in the fuel center (aka the gas station). Sure, I told the woman. I’ll take that job. I figured it couldn’t be that much harder than working in the main store. Turns out I was wrong.

The first problem with working in the fuel center was that while I was being trained the first week, I had to be there at 5:45 in the morning. Ugh. Because my drive from home to the store took 40 minutes, I had to back out of my driveway no later than a couple minutes after five o’clock. It was still dark when I got out of bed between 4:00 and 4:15 to get dressed, eat breakfast, brush my teeth, and gather everything I’d need for the day. I tried to be quiet, but The Man is a light sleeper, and I always woke him up.

I can’t really blame the early morning start time on the fuel center. I could have worked an early shift in the main store too. Also, my schedule for the second week on the job was all over the place: two nights closing, one day mid shift, another morning shift, one more at midday. At least the rest of my work life wouldn’t require a 4am wake up, but having no set schedule can wreak havoc on a gal’s sleep patterns.  

Learning the point-of-sale system wasn’t so difficult. I had a handheld barcode scanner and a computer touch screen; all sales transactions were made using those two devices. Once I learned how to do a void and a cash drop and how to preauthorize cash and debit/credit card gas sales, I was golden. After four days of training, I pretty much had the system down.

I think the part of the job the customer was observing as hard was how busy it got out there. The first day I worked alone was a Friday, and it seemed like half the town was stopping at the grocery store pumps to fuel up. It also seemed like customers came in waves; the fuel center would be empty, then half or more of the pumps would be in operation. Of course, people have needs, and when there are a lot of people, there are a lot of needs. Everyone with a declined credit or debit card came to me. Everyone who couldn’t get the machine outside to register their reward points came to me. Everyone who couldn’t get their pump to start or who thought their pump had shut off too soon came to me. All of these people were in addition to the people who wanted to pay cash or who didn’t want to use a card at the pump or who wanted to buy a pack of gum, an energy drink, a bag or chips, or a pack of cigarettes.

Oh, the cigarettes! I’ve never been a smoker. I’ve never bought a pack of

Marlboro Cigarette Boxes

cigarettes for myself in my life, and when I’ve bought one for another person, the smoker has been very explicit about what exactly I should get. I had no idea there were so many varieties of cigarettes in the world. We had soft packs and boxes, longs and wides, menthols and organics. In the fuel kiosk, we sold 30 varieties of Marlboros, probably 15 varieties of Camels, eight varieties of American Spirits!

How do people even know what they like to smoke? I asked my coworker with bewilderment and frustration.

He just shrugged. They buy different things until they find what they like, he explained.

When I was on my own and a customer asked for cigarettes, I’d find the brand they’d requested, then point to the different varieties until they’d nod or give me a thumbs-up through the bulletproof glass. American Spirits were the easiest for me to sell, as their varieties came in different colored boxes. Light blue was the best seller of American Spirits, although I also sold a black, a yellow, and a light green. (Other varieties included orange, dark blue and two other shades of green).

I was scared to death to sell tobacco products to someone under the age of 18 or to fail to check the ID of anyone under the age of 27. The training provided by the corporation I now worked for had taught me that doing either of those things could get me and the store into a lot of BIG BAD TROUBLE. During my first day in the kiosk, I asked to see the ID of a man who said, I haven’t been carded in 11 years. He went back to his car and got his driver’s license. Turns out he was only two years younger than I am, so solidly middle age.

Selective Focus Photography of Gasoline Nozzle

Other hard parts of the job the lady who commiserated with my plight hadn’t even seen. Every morning the worker had to do a thorough check of all the pumps to make sure nothing was broken, cracked, dirty, or in any way less than perfect. The worker was also supposed to wipe down each pump every morning and use a special cleaning chemical on any gas or oil spill on the concrete as well as do maintenance cleaning on different parts of the concrete in the fuel center (in front of pumps 1 and 2 on Mondays, pumps 3 and 4 on Tuesdays, etc.) Several days a week, the worker was supposed to use a leaf blower on the ground all around the fuel center, and every morning lids in the ground near the where the tanker trucks pumped in the new fuel had to be lifted and checked for water, leakage, excessive dirt, and other problems. It was a lot to do between helping customers, and the entire experience took place with a background smell of gasoline.

The worst part of the job came at noon when the replacement worker

Assorted Bottle And Cans

arrived. The morning worker had one hour to run a report that said what items needed to be transferred from the store to the fuel center. Once the report was printed, the morning worker went into the supermarket and ran around on a product scavenger hunt, working from a list that made little sense. Items were listed, then in the field that said how many to bring to the kiosk, I’d find a zero. I’d think I’d pulled all the necessary drinks, but then among the snacks I’d find another beverage listed. Some drinks were on aisles 20 in the large cooler, but others were warm on aisle 13. Still others could only be found in small coolers near the self-check lanes. Snacks were scattered around the store in at least three different places. Some items were nowhere to be found.

After all the food and drinks were pulled, it was time to move to the huge, locked tobacco case at the front of the store. Yes, the store sold even more varieties of smokes (and smokeless tobacco) than we did in the kiosk. The tobacco scavenger hunt alone could easily take 30 minutes and leave me blinking back tears.

I quickly learned that if I couldn’t find any given item pretty quick, to mark it NF (Not Filled) on my list and move on. I didn’t have the luxury of the time needed to fill the list.

Filling the list also involved the use of a handheld scanning device and an enormous, difficult to steer blue cart. (Using a regular shopping cart would have been infinitely easier.)

By my third day on the job (Tuesday), I wanted out. I called the manager of a souvenir shop I’d applied at during my initial job search and let her know I was still looking for a position. On Friday after work, I had an interview with the souvenir lady. I had the weekend (and Monday too!) off work from the fuel center. I spent all three days hoping I’d be able to give my notice on Tuesday.

Images courtesy of https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-gas-station-during-evening-2284164/, https://www.pexels.com/photo/smoking-57528/, https://www.pexels.com/photo/selective-focus-photography-of-gasoline-nozzle-1537172/, and https://www.pexels.com/photo/assorted-bottle-and-cans-811108/.

Jun26

Weather and the Travel Trailer

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When I was a van dweller, I didn’t give the weather a lot of thought. I didn’t

Trees Covered With Snow

like driving in the rain (never have, never will), so perhaps I’d change my departure time if it was raining when I was ready to leave. I was more concerned with ice and snow and did a better job of planning my travels in the winter, especially in the mountains. But wind? I never thought about the wind when traveling in my van.

Assorted-color Flags Under Gray Clouds

Of course, I noticed the wind when traveling in my van, especially in states with windy conditions like Kansas, Arizona, and New Mexico. Especially in my two vans with high tops, I was aware of the wind. I was lucky to have never met a gust that blew me (or scared me) off the road. Sometimes I slowed down when the wind was strong, and sometimes I held on to the steering wheel tightly with both hands, but wind never changed my travel plans.

Things are different now that The Man and I are living and traveling in a tongue-pull trailer. It’s not as easy as it once was to just get up and go.

After picking up our travel trailer, we made a trip of several hundred miles to get back to our temporary home base in Southern New Mexico. When we arrived at Rockhound State Park to take advantage of our New Mexico State Parks annual camping pass, we found no empty campsites.  We ended up staying in the parking lot of the local Wal-Mart. The location wasn’t an ideal campsite, but we didn’t mind too much because we were in our new home. The next time we went to Rockhound, we found an acceptable vacant campsite, and The Man backed in our travel trailer.

We stayed at Rockhound for about a week, splurging $4 a night to connect to electricity. We decided to head about 100 miles down the road and spend a few days at Elephant Butte Lake State Park before setting off for our final destination. We agreed to leave on Wednesday.

We woke up at our usual time that morning, between 5:00 and 6:30. I was up first, which was unusual, but The Man soon followed. He made and drank his coffee while I wrote the first draft of a blog post. We’d done most of our cleaning and putting away the night before, so we didn’t have to do much before we left.

I was heating leftovers for my breakfast when The Man asked me if I’d be ready to go soon. I told him would be ready after I ate my breakfast and brushed my teeth.

I’d noticed the wind had been strong ever since I’d gotten out of bed, which was unusual. Even in New Mexico, the wind doesn’t typically blow until the sun is out. As I ate my breakfast, the trailer continued to shimmy and shake, but I didn’t think much about it or consider what it might mean for our travel plans.

It’s bad out there, The Man said.

What’s bad? I asked. I assumed he was talking about the wind, but I wasn’t sure.

Have you looked outside? he asked.

I shook my head, then moved to the window. When I looked outside, I realized we were experiencing a full-on dust storm. I could see nothing outside the immediate surroundings of the campground. I couldn’t see any of the buildings dotting the land that slopes away from the campground. I couldn’t see the town off in the distance. Heck, I could barely make out the mountains that I knew surrounded us. The wind carried not only enough dust to block out the human-made structures I was accustomed to looking at every day, but so much dust filled the air that the very mountains were obscured. That, my friend, is a lot of dust.

I thought about the signs I’d seen in New Mexico and Arizona, the ones that say “Dust Storms May Exist” and “Zero Visibility Possible” and “Blowing Dust Area.” I thought about the signs in New Mexico telling drivers what to do if they were caught in a dust storm and couldn’t see anything. (Pull off roadway. Turn lights off. Foot off brake. Stay buckled.) The situation we were in was exactly what those signs were about.

We’d be fools to take the trailer out in this, I told The Man.

I knew he really wanted to leave, but he agreed with me. We would be fools to take the trailer out in this.

The wind delay got me thinking about how the weather is going to affect our travels with the trailer.

You wouldn’t want to pull that trailer in the rain either, I pointed out to The Man, and he agreed he wouldn’t want to do that.

Water Dew in Clear Glass Panel

We’re going to have to start looking at the weather before we leave, I told him.

Pulling the trailer is already a challenge for The Man. (I haven’t even attempted to drive the truck with the trailer attached to it.) Keeping the entire rig in his lane, watching out for the mistakes of other drivers, letting folks enter the interstate via the on ramps all contribute to his stress. Slippery roads and low visibility would certainly add to the tension. Why drive through bad weather if we can avoid it?

Checking the weather forecast is such a simple thing. If we have internet access, it’s really easy to do. My new plan is to check the forecast for proposed departure dates as soon as we begin discussing leaving. If there’s rain or ice of sleet or snow or high winds in the forecast along our route, we’ll leave as many days earlier or later as it takes to stay safe.

The high winds lasted over 24 hours. They shook the trailer all day. I felt like I was in a boat for hours. Some gusts were so strong, I wondered if the trailer would be blown over. The wind was still shaking the trailer when we went to bed. Thankfully the air was calmer the next morning (but still quite brisk by anyone’s standards), and we were able to make it safely to our next destination.

Do you check the weather forecast before you hit the road? How bad does the weather have to be before you postpone travel? What do you find most difficult to drive in: rain, wind, snow, or sleet? Please leave a comment telling how weather impacts your travel days.

Images courtesy of https://www.pexels.com/photo/trees-covered-with-snow-833013/, https://www.pexels.com/photo/assorted-color-flags-under-gray-clouds-1685842/, and https://www.pexels.com/photo/blur-cars-dew-drops-125510/.

Jun24

Only Job?

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Sometimes I don’t know what people are thinking when they speak. I suspect some people have no thoughts at all before they open their mouths and let words come out.

One Saturday we were busy at the Mercantile where I worked for two camping seasons. My sweet co-worker and I were standing behind the counter when another group of tourists streamed through the door. One of the new arrivals, a middle age woman with curly hair, looked right at the other clerk and asked, Is this your only job?

My co-worker and I were both like What? and the tourist woman specified, Do you work anywhere else?

I don’t remember what exactly my coworker said. She probably explained working in the store was a fulltime job. I can’t imagine what the tourist lady was thinking. I wonder if she interrogates cashiers at Wal-Mart and Target about their other employment. Maybe she wondered if my coworker had to hold a couple of jobs to make ends meet. Maybe she was just trying to make conversation and was awkward about it.

In honor of my sweet coworker, one of the kindest people I’ve ever met, I’ll list the jobs I know she had last summer.

  • Before the store opened, she helped get a 36 site campground ready for campers.
  • She worked 40+ hours each week at the Mercantile.
  • Every night she cooked dinner and served it to her husband.
  • She used one of her days off to clean the firth wherel where she and her husband (and their dog and cat) lived.
  • She also did all the laundry for her and her husband on one of her days off.
  • Whenever the Mercantile needed more merchandise, she pulled back stock from the box truck parked at the campground where she lived, then delivered the merchandise to the store.
  • She kept a list of items that needed to be reordered and communicated that information to the buyer for the company we worked for.
  • When the camp host left the campground where she lived and before a replacement was hired, my coworker checked in campers on busy weekends.
  • On more than one occasion, she hemmed the pants of camp hosts on her day off.
  • Every week she did all the paperwork pertaining to occupancy for the six campgrounds her husband managed.

Isn’t that enough? I would have asked the tourist lady if my coworker had detailed all the work she did in a regular weeks. Isn’t that enough?

Jun21

The Girl with the Broken Arm

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I never saw the girl with the broken arm, but I did speak to her father.

I knew something unusual was happening when one of the workers from the main parking lot approached the mercantile. It was the middle of a busy Friday, and I didn’t think she’d have walked over without a good reason.

I just happened to be outside talking to Javier the camp host when Cindy the parking lot attendant walked up. She told us a girl had broken her arm on the trail. Cindy had walked over to the store with the girl’s father.

Do you want me to call 911? I asked. Cindy said yes, and the man nodded. His eyes looked blank, and he seemed exceptionally calm.

I burst into the Mercantile and asked the other clerk for the phone. A girl broke her arm on the trail! I explained. The other clerk handed over the phone, and I punched in 9-1-1.

I saw the father had followed in into the Mercantile. I’m going to coach you so you can tell them how to get here, I told the dad. He continued to look blank, as if there were nothing going on behind his eyes.

Calling 911 (or AAA, for that matter) from the Mercantile was an ordeal. Since the campground didn’t have an actual street address, the dispatcher always had great difficulty finding our location. An address associated with our phone number did pop up on the dispatcher’s computer screen, but that address was fudged and existed in a tiny community fifteen miles from our phone’s actual location. Invariably, the dispatcher asked for the nearest cross street, which was a few miles away. After four years on the mountain, I knew what to say to get the help visitors needed, but most tourists barely knew where they were, much less how to convey that information to someone in an office in a city in the valley.

In the long seconds between the rings of the phone, I asked the dad where he was from.

France, he said with a thick accent.

My plan of coaching him went out the window. A language barrier on top of our remote location would have simply been too complicated. I decided to speak to the dispatcher myself.

The language barrier also explained the dad’s blank expression. He wasn’t necessarily drugged up or tuned out; maybe he only understood a small fraction of the words being spoken around him.

The 911 operator answered the phone and asked about my emergency. I explained a girl had broken her arm and the father was French, so I was helping by making the call. Then I said we were in a remote location, thus beginning the ordeal of explaining where to send the first responders.

Once the dispatcher finally pinpointed our location, she had some questions about the situation.

She asked how old the girl was. I relayed the question to the father.

Ten, he replied after a moment’s thought.

I gave the information to the dispatcher, then she asked how the injury occurred.

Again I conveyed the question to the father, and this time had had to think for a longer while.

She fell from a horizontal tree, he finally said.

It’s dangerous to climb on horizontal trees!

I repeated his words to the dispatcher, who seemed satisfied with the answer. She then said she was going to connect me with the ambulance company so I could explain our location to their dispatcher. Oh joy.

Moments after I’d walked into the Mercantile and asked for the phone, moments after the father of the girl with the broken arm had followed me in, a tall, imposing woman with a French accent had also come into the store. I found out later from Cindy that this woman had been translating for Cindy and the family of the girl with the broken arm. I didn’t get a good look at the woman, but I clearly heard her tell the father (in English!) that she was giving him a tablet to give to her daughter. It was a pain reliever, she said. You must trust me! she said. I didn’t mention the tablet to the 911 dispatcher because I didn’t know what the drug was or if the girl had actually ingested it. (Later, after he father had left and then returned, I asked him is the girl had taken the tablet. He said she had, then told me it was ibuprofen.)

Despite specific instructions not to move the girl that I had relayed from the ambulance dispatcher to the father, when the father returned to the Mercantile, he told the other clerk that now the entire family was waiting in the shade near the entrance to the campground.

An EMT from a nearby fire department (and by nearby, I mean 25 miles and 45 minutes away) arrived before the ambulance and accessed the situation. He cancelled the ambulance after telling the parents the girl would probably be more comfortable if they drove her to the nearest hospital instead of continuing to wait for the ambulance. (The parents were also likely saving themselves a pile of money by not giving their daughter a ride down the mountain in an ambulance.)

I never found out if the girl’s arm was actually broken or if she’d only sprained her wrist. In any case, the lesson to be taken from this tale by all adult caregivers, regardless of their nationality? Don’t let children for whom you are responsible play on horizontal trees.

I took the photo in this post.
Jun19

In Which I Admit Ways a Travel Trailer Is Better Than a Van

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Chevy G20 high top van in the forest
I lived in this Chevy G20 for almost five years.

I was a vandweller for nearly a decade before a travel trailer came into my life after the death of my father. I enjoyed being a vandweller. I enjoyed taking my home with me wherever I went. I enjoyed a life without rent payments. I enjoyed being a renegade and a nomad.

To be honest, if I were single, I’d probably still live in my van. I was resistant to the whole idea of living in a travel trailer. My van had always been enough for me.

However, living in a van with my sweetheart was not easy for either of us. I especially need a lot of alone time, a lot of quiet. My guy likes to talk a lot and play guitar and move around. Also, he is six feet tall and simply needs room for his body. He bought a minivan in order to spend less money on gas, but can’t sit comfortably in it to carve or make jewelry.

Life was a little easier when we each had our own rig to hang out in and sleep in, but we did still suffer lots of discomforts. I was tired of cooking outside in the wind and the dust and the cold. I was so tired of constantly buying ice for the cooler and dealing with the water that always managed to accumulate in the bottom of it. Sure, I could deal with those annoyances (I think I’m a little bit tough), but I didn’t really want to.

Drawing of blue canned ham style travel trailer with yellow sun and the words Home Is Where You Park It.

If I weren’t with The Man, I would not be pulling a travel trailer. I think it’s more work than I want to do alone. However, in less than a month living in the travel trailer (when I wrote the rough draft of this post), I was already spoiled by the amenities it offered.

The number one luxury of life in the travel trailer is probably the head room. I don’t know how many times I hit my head while living in my van, and I’m not even tall! The Man hit his head even more. Ouch! It sure is nice to stand up to cook, put on pants, or simply move from one spot to another. Even with cupboards above our bed, we can both sit up comfortably. I’m sure both our brains are glad to no longer get bumped around so much.

Another perk of  travel trailer life is more storage space for our stuff. We have lots of cupboards, cabinets, and drawers. The kitchen boasts four drawers and six cabinets. There is storage under the dinette’s bench seats. The living area has four overhead cupboards. Between the sofa and the bedroom is an armoire with four shelves behind two doors and four large drawers down below. There are two short cabinets over the bed and two tall ones on each side. There is even a storage compartment under the bed! Finally, we have room for the things we own.

In addition to space for stuff, we have space for people! Coyote Sue was our first visitor. She stopped by to see our place when we were all at Elephant Butte Lake State Park using our New Mexico State Parks annual camping pass. It was nice for each of us to sit in a comfortable spot while we chatted.

We could even have overnight guests if we wanted. The legs come off the table and the tabletop sits between the two bench seats to make a platform that becomes a bed when the cushions from the seats are arranged on it. The couch folds down into a (lumpy but functional) bed. Guests here might not have the best sleep of their lives, but at least we can offer places to lie down for the night.

My favorite part of having more space is having a separate bedroom. The bedroom is at the front of the trailer and has an accordion door to hide it from the rest of the living space. (I wish the bedroom had a solid door like the bathroom does, but a folding door is better than nothing.) While The Man (and Jerico the dog too) do sleep in the bed with me (thankfully the RV queen size mattress provides room for all), the bedroom is my domain. When The Man wakes up before me in the morning (which is usually the way it happens), he can leave the room, close the door, and go about his life in the other part of the trailer. When I wake up, I can sit in the bed and write with few distractions.

I’m quite relieved to have sturdy screens over all the windows. We even have screen doors on both entrances! I know how miserable it is to live in a van and have to choose between being hot with the windows closed to keep bugs out or opening the windows to let in a breeze and fresh air and also letting in a squadron of mosquitoes or flies or no see ‘ems. I fashioned some window screens during my days as a vandweller, but my DIY efforts always fell short (and often fell down). I’m glad to have properly fitted, professionally installed screens with no holes on all the windows and doors so we can have airflow while keeping bugs out.

Blue sky with full of white puffy clouds. Tree in foreground. Lake in background.
Tree at Elephant Butte Lake State Park.

Having electricity in our home is really awesome. During a week and a half stay at Rockhound State Park, , we only had to splurge on an extra $4 per night for a campsite with electricity since we had the annual camping pass. We were quickly spoiled by being able to flip a switch and have light. It was also convenient to be able to charge our electronics by plugging into an electrical outlet in our home. We missed these luxuries when we moved to Elephant Butte Lake State Park and opted for a campsite with no hookups. When we finally got the travel trailer out on our own property, we charged our house batteries each night by running our generator for about an hour. Now we have a complete solar power system, and we get our power from the sun. The Man got our solar electric system up and running as soon as possible because once we got a taste of having electricity in our home, we didn’t want to give it up.

Most of the other advantages of living in the travel trailer have to do with the kitchen. I’m not a gourmet cook, but I do feed myself and The Man a couple of times each day, so I like to be comfortable when I prepare meals.

Cooking out of the elements is a huge perk. Cooking outside is not entirely unpleasant if the weather is nice. However, cooking outside when it’s raining or snowing or sleeting or hailing or just plain cold is a real pain in the neck.  It’s also difficult (sometimes impossible) to cook in a strong Southwestern wind. Working outside in a steady wind of 20 to 30 mph (with stronger gusts) is difficult enough, but add in the dust that is always part of a windy situation, and I just want to grab some food from Little Caesar’s or Taco Bell. Being in the trailer and out of inclement weather has been a game changer when it comes to cooking meals.

Sure I could have cooked in my van during bad weather, and at times I did boil water or heat up some leftovers. Since I’ve read the warnings on my camp stove about the dangers of using it in enclosed spaces, I always worried about using it in the van. The stove and oven in the travel trailer were professionally installed at the factory and are (ostensibly) vented properly and pose fewer risks.

Having an oven is a huge perk. I missed baking for all the years I lived in my van. When The Man and I moved into the fifth wheel and found it had a working oven, I was overjoyed. I baked pizza, cakes, brownies, treats for the dog, and cornbread from my father’s recipe. When we sold the fifth wheel, leaving the oven behind was a sad moment for me. Now that I have an oven again, I’ve enjoyed baking yummies for the whole family.

I haven’t had a working refrigerator in my home in years, since the one in the fifth wheel didn’t work and was used as a pantry. Having refrigeration in the travel trailer is a huge convenience. I no longer have to buy ice. I no longer have to deal with melted ice water. I no longer have to deal with the water that always ends up at the bottom of the cooler no matter what I do to avoid it. Can I live without refrigeration? Yes. Is life a lot easier with a working refrigerator in the house? Also yes.

Colorful drawings of travel trailers and camper vans surround the words Home Is Where We Park It.
My dear friend sent this to me. I love it! I hung it over the kitchen sink.

While some aspects of living in a travel trailer are challenging (I’m looking at you, hitching!) the advantages currently outshine those challenges. I feel so fortunate that my dad’s death has brought this travel trailer into my life.

I took the photos in this post.

Jun17

Update: Late Spring 2019

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Grey clouds are lit from behind over a vast expanse of New Mexico sage
Clouds to the west of our land on a Saturday afternoon in May of 2019.

It’s been a while since I shared an update on what’s happening in my life. It feels like a lot has happened, but not much has changed. Perhaps the problem is that all the things that have happened don’t seem exciting enough for a blog post.

We’ve been living on our land for nearly two months now. We look at mountains and sky every day. The view is amazing. I particularly like to watch the clouds.

Blue sky and puffy white clouds above a camper surrounded by New Mexico sage
This is not our land, but this is what our land looked like before The Man cleared it.

When The Man cleared our property, he removed all the sage plants so rattlesnakes would have fewer places to hide. We were mostly worried for Jerico the dog. A snake bite would be a big ordeal for someone weighing only 35 pounds. Now we wish we had left some vegetation on our property. The Man is trying to grow some grass. We bought a drought-resistant blend from the local hardware store, but so far we’re not having much luck with it. The Man is experimenting with different planting and watering techniques. I recently noticed little green plants volunteering all over our property, so maybe with the sage gone, native plants will make a comeback.

After weeks of struggle, The Man got our solar power system up and running. After watching numerous YouTube videos, he ended up consulting with a representative of a local company that sells and installs solar power setups. He finally got it all figured out, and from the moment everything was connected, it’s all be running fine. The sun rises before 6am these days, and our batteries begin charging immediately. We have enough energy to ignite the refrigerator pilot light (the fridge runs primarily on propane but has an electric starter—ditto the heater), run lights and television (!) at night, charge our electronics, and power The Man’s electric guitar and amplifier. All our needs are met, and I’m proud to get our power from the sun.

We joined the local water association, so we can haul our water from a location closer to our place and pay less for it than we’d been paying in town. We got a 55 gallon, BPA free barrel for hauling the water as well as a 195 gallon reservoir in which to store the water. I’ll be glad to have to haul water less frequently. Going to town every four or five days to buy water was getting to be a real drag.

We put up a prefab metal shed. We completed the project in about four days. First The Man (with a bit of help from me) built the floor from tongue and groove plywood and 4x4s. By the time the floor was complete, the wind had picked up, and we didn’t want to deal with sharp-edged metal panels. We called it a day.

The next day we (mostly he) got the side, back, and front walls built before the wind started. Our first step in wall building was sorting the components. There were probably 100 parts to the shed (mostly sheets of thin metal), and they were boxed together in no particular order. As we sorted according to five-digit numbers stamped on the components, we found many of the pieces had been bent during shipping and had to be finessed back into shape. Once we started the actual building of the walls, we discovered the instructions (mostly drawings with few words) were difficult to decipher. We were pretty sure the person who’d written (drawn) the directions had never actually constructed the shed in question.

Two small green plants growing in the dirt
Some of the plants volunteering on our land.,

On the third day, we put the walls up and attached them to each other and the floor. The process was not nearly as simple as the preceding sentence makes it sound. When The Man started putting up the second side wall, he realized the directions had told him to put a corner in the wrong place. He had to correct the mistake while I held the other two walls in place. When The Man started putting in screws to hold the walls together, he found the manufacturer of the shed had put holes for screws in one panel but not the other. He had to push hard to get the screws through the second piece of metal.

Once the walls were up, we had to construct the roof. Before we were done, we’d run out of the plastic washers that went with the screws to help keep water out of the shed. The kit had come with at least fifty extra screws but not a single extra washer. We had no idea why the manufacturer didn’t throw in a few extra of the kit’s cheapest part. Luckily we found a few washers to do the job in our stash of fasteners.

After about four hours of work, all that was missing was the door. The Man and I were both tired and hungry, and we needed to run some errands in town. We’ll finish this later, The Man grumbled.

The wind had come up strong by then, but the shed didn’t move, even without the door. We were away from home for at least four hours; when we returned, the shed was still standing. We were certainly grateful for this demonstration of the shed’s sturdiness.

While I cooked diner, The Man assembled the shed’s door.

Oh no! I messed it up! I heard him say. He’d used his intuition instead of the instructions, and things hadn’t turned out the way he’d hoped. So he took the door apart and followed the directions exactly. The door was still wrong! Following the directions hadn’t helped one bit!

White metal shed against an overcast sky
Our shed, complete.

Somehow he got the components of the door assembled, and I helped him hang it. Finally—success! After dinner, he dragged the shed where he wanted it on our property. (We built it close to the trailer and not where we actually wanted it to sit because we wanted the trailer to serve as a windbreak during construction.) While I washed the dishes, he loaded the shed with tools and plastic totes and water jugs. Later, I found a padlock and key in the junk drawer and brought it outside to lock the shed’s door. We stood in front of the shed for a few moments and admired our work.

I’m convinced that if our relationship survived us building that shed together, it can survive anything.

I took all the photos in this post.

Jun14

Off the Cliff

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The Man and I and Jerico the dog took my New Mexico State Parks Pass and went camping at Bluewater Lake State Park between Gallup and Grants, New Mexico. We were staying in the Canyonside Campground near the trailhead for the Canyonside Trail.

Tall, tree-covered canyon walls in the distance. Shallow creek in the foreground.
Bluewater Creek down below

As you may have guessed from the name of the campground and the trail, we were camped on the side of a canyon. Specifically, we were camped above the canyon, but trees and vegetation blocked the view of Bluewater Creek down below. It was easy to forget the land dropped dropped dropped right across from where the van was parked.

It was late September, late in the camping season, so we had the campground loop mostly to ourselves. Some folks in a popup camper were in the area when we arrived on Saturday, but they left late the next day. An elderly couple camped catacorner and across the road from the site we had chosen, but they moved to a spot with a shade cover in a different part of the park after a couple of days when the weather forecast called for rain.

Because the area was underpopulated, The Man felt comfortable throwing the ball for Jerico. He threw the ball away from other campers and kept it pretty close to home.

As I’ve written before, Jerico loves to play ball. He loves for us to pet him, he loves Rachael Ray dog food and any sort of yummy treat, but most of all, he loves to play ball. In the last year, it has become possible to throw the ball enough to wear Jerico out. After fifteen to twenty minutes of chasing and retrieving the ball (depending on the temperature outside) he has to lie down and rest, but in another fifteen or twenty minutes, he’s raring to chase and retrieve the ball again.

A man and dog stand on a rock overhang. Both look down into a green canyon.
Jerico and The Man look down into the canyon.

The Man has thrown the ball for Jerico for countless hours in the last seven or so years. He’s usually very careful to never throw the ball anywhere dangerous because Jerico doesn’t have the sense to stay away from danger. All Jerico cares about is the ball. Jerico focuses entirely on the ball. He doesn’t think about where the ball is going or the relative safety or danger of going after it. Once the ball is thrown, he simply takes off after it.

The Man is usually very careful about where he throws the ball, but this day something went wrong. Whether he was distracted and didn’t think about where he was aiming the ball or if the ball bounced and went off in the wrong direction, I don’t know. Suddenly I heard The Man yelling No! and Stay!

I’m sure you’ve guessed what happened. The ball went toward the canyon and Jerico was not going to hesitate to follow it. Luckily, The Man intervened in time and kept Jerico from blindly giving chase.

The Man put Jerico in the van and searched the area around the drop off in hopes of finding the ball stopped by a large rock or fallen tree branch. No such luck. The ball was gone. No doubt it had rolled and bounced its way down to the canyon floor.

Jerico was not happy about the loss of his ball. He looked at The Man expectantly and barked.

In the past, when the Man was done playing, he sometimes took the ball away from Jerico and put it out of his reach. I think that’s what Jerico thought had happened. He settled down after about ten minutes of barking and expectant looks. However, later in the day, he got more insistent inhis looks and barks. We knew the signs. He was ready to chase the ball again.

A dog plays with a popped soccer ball that's bigger than his head.
Oliver will chase and retrieve any ball, even if he’s popped it, even if it’s bigger than his head.

The Man usually travels with a supply of the blue racquetballs Jerico likes to chase. (Of course, Jerico will chase and retrieve any ball, but the racquetballs are light enough for him to bounce off his nose and catch in midair.) The Man looked all over the van and couldn’t find a single blue racquetball. He realized he’d left the extras in his van which we’d stored in a friend’s backyard over 300 miles away.

Jerico grew more insistent. He really wanted to play ball.

Look dude, The Man said to him, we’re not going 30 miles to Wal-Mart just to get balls.

Jerico obviously didn’t understand.

We had to keep a close eye on the dog. He kept trying to go near the drop off to sniff around. He’s part beagle, so I have no doubt he could have picked up its scent. We were still concerned he would jump off the cliff fof the ball with no concern for his safety.

A dog in an orange harness stands among rocks and tree.

By the next morning, Jerico was being a huge pain in the neck. He would look at us and bark, toss his head, and prance around. We knew what he wanted, but had not way of giving it to him. The barking just went on and on.

I guess we’re going to have to go to Wal-Mart, The Man grumbled.

We had some things to do at the public library in Grants, then The man and I had a lunch date at the local Pizza Hut. It was mid-afternoon by the time we arrived at Wal-Mart. We made a beeline to the sporting goods department, only to find there wasn’t a single racquetball to be found. There wasn’t even an empty space on the shelf where racquetballs should have been.

The Man said we’d have to get tennis ball, but we couldn’t find any of those either.

The Man went to the nearby toy department and asked for help, but the associate he brought back to sporting goods with him couldn’t find racquet or tennis balls either. She shrugged, said she was new, and wandered back to the boxes of toys she’d been unpacking.

Another worker we cornered said to look for tennis balls in the pet department. We found some there, which we purchased, but we wondered where the tennis and racquetball players of Grants get their balls.

Once back at our camp at the state park, The man pulled out one of the new especially-for-dog tennis balls out of the package and played a game of fetch with Jerico. You can bet he was super careful to throw the ball well away from the canyon.

Jun12

10 Blogs by Vandwellers, Nomads, Vagabonds, RVers, Travelers, and Drifters

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Thanks for reading my blog! I appreciate your support! Maybe you’re wondering what other blogs you can read that are written by vandwellers, nomads, vagabonds, RVers, travelers, and drifters. Today I’ll share with you what I know about blogs written by folks who live on the road at least part of time.

White van in the distance at sunset.
Photo provided by Devan

Xsyntrik Nomad is written by my sweet and positive friend Devan Winters, a vandweller. She writes about choosing and building a van, earning a living on the road, and sharing her vanlife with a cat. She’s a very talented writer and her posts are quirky and engaging.

Yvette Angela Assata writes Rated Rosa, and says of herself,


I am a radical Black feminist, birth worker, activist, anti-racist, a lesbian, and I do a whole lot of community organizing…


…I decided I would convert a school bus to live in, and while I was at it, travel North America. The choice to move onto a vehicle was an easy decision for me because it fits my lifestyle. Besides living in the Pacific Northwest for the past near-13 years, seeing the increases in rent and gentrified neighborhoods, watch people not able to find housing (myself included) and literally pushed out of cities and into the margins, I’m anti-establishment and a wanderer to my core.

Brenton MacAloney has been writing Brent’s Travels since 2013. He’s traveled in a camper van, a Toyota Prius, and a pickup truck with a camper that slides into the van. He says,


I like travel, meeting people, and writing about my experiences.

Meeting people is a goal of mine. In fact I will try to meet someone new everyday. I want to write about them. Who [they] are and what makes them unique.

 

Undercover Hippy Bus is about a family living in “big white ex-courier van.” The adults were tired of all the time their jobs stole away from being with their kids, so they sold off most of their stuff and now live simply and happily. They write about parenting, food, and travels.


Make Like an Apeman is about Duwan and Greg, nomads since 2011. They say,

…we sold everything, quit our jobs, rented our house (and eventually sold it), bought a sailboat, and set sail on a traveling adventure and a story that has been writing itself as we go along.

Their Instagram account (@makelikeanapeman) says they now live in a van three seasons a year and house sit in the summers.

Burly Nomads is the blog of

Miah and George, a gay couple [who recently started their] adventure into full-time RV living. We are tired of being tied down to a house that we do not like, nor want to be in. Tired of not being able to travel to places we want to see, visit with friends and family we want to visit, so we are choosing to have a life of ‘Freedom over Stability’

A cat walks on a narrow ledge below the large back window of an RV.
Sonja Begonia in Brownie’s big back window. Photo used with Sue’s permission.

The RV Artsy Life of Sue Soaring Sun is written by my friend and Sun sister. She writes about the art she creates and the places she visits with her cat Sonja Begonia while living in Brownie, her 20-ft 1984 Lazy Daze mini-motor home. Sue doesn’t update her blog often, but when she does, I really enjoy her stories from the road.

Gnomad Home is the place to go to read about the adventures of John and Jayme and their two dogs. It’s also an outstanding place to get tons of tips to make your van life easier and more enjoyable. There is an excellent section called Build Your Van with so much helpful information

all about helping you…choose your van, plan your design, install creature comforts like electricity and plumbing, and actually build out the interior of your DIY campervan conversion. [Y]ou’ll find awesome infographics, detailed information, step-by-step guides, links to helpful resources, and more.

Kaya Lindsay’s blog can be found at One Chick Travels. Kaya says of herself,

I am a writer, I am a photographer, I am a filmmaker, I am a climber, I play the ukulele and I drive long distances as a form of self-care…

I have been living in my 2006 Dodge Sprinter Van and creating content for about 2 years. I drive around, rock climb, play the ukulele 🎶 and interview badass lady travelers who are also living in vans.

Interstellar Orchard is the blog of Becky Schade who started living on the road full-time in 2012, at the age of 28. Becky says,


Here at Interstellar Orchard (IO), you’ll find:
Informational articles on how to go RVing full-time
Travelogues of my adventures to inspire future nomads and armchair travelers alike
Philosophical posts on how to live a happier, more fulfilling life

Jun10

You Are Here

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We sold maps at the Mercantile where I worked, but most people wanted to look at them without actually purchasing them. One of the maps we sold was produced by the Forest Service and between Memorial Day weekend when the Mercantile opened and the middle of July, the price went up from $12.99 to $20. The other map we sold was better, easier to read, and only cost $12.95. When we ran out of those and the store’s buyer couldn’t contact the publishing company, The Big Boss man ordered some form Amazon, and the price jumped to $20. Just like the law of supply and demand I’d learned about in my high school free enterprise class predicted, we were suddenly selling significantly fewer maps.

One Friday morning, a large extended family came into the Mercantile. A boy of about 14 asked to see a map. The other clerk pulled one out of the display case where we’d started keeping them to prevent theft (our computerized inventory said we had two more maps than were actually in the store, so we knew some had been stolen) and manhandling by people who had no intention of buying. The boy said he was looking for waterfalls, but I don’t know if he was able to locate any on the map.

Model Figure Standing on MapDoes this map say “You are here”? he asked and he unfolded it.

Well, no, I said. If it did, the words would have to keep moving around as you moved through the forest.

The kid looked at me blankly.

I tried again. Only a stationary map will say “You are here,” I told him, but he continued to look at me blankly. I wondered if he knew what “stationary” meant.

Only a map that doesn’t move can say “You are here,” I said, and not a glimmer of understanding flickered across the kid’s face.

I gave up. I was too busy trying to watch out for shoplifters  and helping people find sizes to explain that a paper map moving through time and space with a person has no way to update “You are here” to reflect where a person is at any given moment. With paper maps, explorers must figure out “You are here” on their own.

Image courtesy of https://www.pexels.com/photo/blur-cartography-close-up-concept-408503/.
Jun7

Robo Call

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Seven Assorted Colored Rotary Telephones

My phone number has somehow made its way onto the call lists of an untold number of telemarketers. I’ve been getting solicitations for years, often 3 to 6 in a single day. On many occasions, the caller thinks I’m Mrs. Sanchez. Sometimes the caller attempts to conduct business in Spanish. I’ve had the same phone number since 2012. I’ve never used Sanchez as a pseudonym. My command of Spanish is minimal at best. I have no idea how my number ended up on these particular call lists.

My phone has a California area code, so many of these telemarketing calls are targeted at a California home owner. I get the same recording offering to steam clean my carpets every couple of weeks. I simply hang up on this recording and others. Real people say they represent contractors and are offering California home owners free estimates on home improvements. Sometimes the free estimates (and/or government subsidies) are related to solar panels. I usually tell these people I don’t have a home or I live in my van, and they can’t get off the phone with me quickly enough. Sometimes I get a wish of good luck! before they disconnect.

When I can get a word in, I ask the telemarketers to remove me from their call list. They say they will, but I doubt they do. Really, why should they bother? How will I know if they do or they don’t? What are the chances I’ll take some sort of legal action if representatives of the company continues to call me after I ask them to stop?

I do block the numbers of known telemarketers, but that barely helps. For every number blocked, two new ones seem to spring up in its place. The same companies seem to have a multitude of outgoing numbers at their disposal.

Usually I end these calls as quickly as possible. I don’t have a need for the legitimate services offered, and I fear most of these calls only lead to scams. However, sometimes I’m bored and decide to see if I can have a little fun before the call ends. My fun usually takes the form of pretending I think I’ve already won a prize when the caller tells me I may (probably not) have won a prize.

Oh! That’s so great! I gush. How soon can I go on that cruise to Antigua/pick up my new car/spend my $6 trillion dollars? I’m amused for a few minutes while the caller frantically tries to convince me I haven’t won yet, and I act

White Cruise Ship on Blue Body of Water during Daytime

as if my prize is already on its way.

I’ll probably go to Hell for these games I play, as it’s not kind to mess with people who are simply trying to make a living. Then I remember these people are making a living by taking advantage of people who aren’t so savvy to the wicked ways of the world. Who’s going to Hell now?

One day I was at the library, working on this blog. I had my phone’s sound turned off, but I saw I had a call coming in. I answered and was greeted by the least human robot voice imaginable. The robot told me its name was Gail, and there was a problem with my social security number. Gail the robot asked me to call back the number it was calling from so we could discuss the very urgent problem with my social security number. Apparently Gail was not just a robot, but a robot programmed by a non-native speaker of English. Her syntax was off, and her word choice was strange. Surely the legitimate Social Security Administration would do better than this recording.

I don’t know exactly why I decided to return the call. I think it was because the recording was so outlandish. I was wildly curious to find out what an actual person on the other end of the line would say. Besides, I had nothing to lose. These people already had my phone number, and there was no way I was going to give up any other personal information.

I dialed the number and was surprised when a live human being immediately answered my call. The voice seemed to belong to a male, and from the accent, I judged the person to be a non-native speaker of English. Of course, I have no way of knowing if my assumptions were correct.

I could hear a lot of noise in the background. The call center I had reached must have been huge because I could hear the frenzied buzz of many voices and the tapping of fingers on multiple keyboards.

I told the person who’d answered the phone that I’d received a call from the number I’d just dialed and was now returning the call as instructed. The telemarketer (or scam artist or whatever they’re calling themselves these days) asked me when I’d received the call, and I replied, Just moments ago. He asked if I’d received a voice mail, and I said it hadn’t been a voicemail, it had been a call from a fake human.

At this point I grabbed my purse and walked out of the library and stood on the sidewalk so my exchange with the telemarketer wouldn’t disturb the other patrons. I thought this call might last a while.

The telemarketer asked my name. I asked him what name he had on file for me. When he insisted that he needed me to give him my name, I said, You called me.

The telemarketer immediately dropped all pretense of professionalism. Fuk U, beetch! he said to me.

I couldn’t believe it. I’d barely provoked him. He’d gone from zero to cursing because I didn’t immediately state my name. He must have been having a really bad day.

I was stunned into silence, and he screeched again, Fuk U, beetch!

What are you saying? Are you even speaking English? I asked. It was not the finest comeback, I admit. I knew very well what he was saying and in what language he was saying it.

He threw one more Fuk U, beetch! at me for good measure, then disconnected the call.

Wow. I was shocked, but not really offended. We hadn’t been on the phone long enough for me to take his anger or even his cursing personally. Someone should tell the guy that immediate cursing and early termination of a call is not the way to swindle a person’s social security number out of them. He needed to use a little finesse, perhaps some sweet talk and flattery. He needed to earn the caller’s trust, build up the caller’s confidence in him. He was never going to scam anyone with that negative attitude of his.

I doubt a supervisor would ever guide him to an outstanding career as a scam artist telemarketer. After all, the call was probably not being monitored for quality assurance or training purposes. His supervisor would probably never know he was going off script to hurl Fuk U, beetch! at non-cooperative callers.

I added my number to the National Do Not Call Registry maintained by the Federal Trade Commission. We’ll see if doing so puts a dent in the number of telemarketing calls I receive.

Images courtesy of https://www.pexels.com/photo/seven-assorted-colored-rotary-telephones-774448/ and https://www.pexels.com/search/cruise/.